Thunderstorm may ease the heat by this weekend
NEW DELHI: Heatwave conditions returned on Thursday to northwest India, including the national capital where parts of the city recorded a maximum temperature over 46°C, with conditions expected to worsen on Friday before a sudden turn in the weather is expected over the weekend.
The forecasts suggest there will be no let-up in instances of weather extremes – last weekend, the city recorded its hottestever temperature of 49°C – even as readings and satellite images from south of the country show the monsoon rains may be marching faster than previously predicted.
“Heat wave would occur over northwest and Madhya Pradesh till tomorrow only and abate thereafter due to approaching western disturbance, and likely southwesterly winds from Arabian sea over northwest India,” said a senior IMD official, asking not to be named.
Another official said the western disturbance, a rain-bearing system that will cause the thunderstorms, could be “very strong”. “There will be thunderstorm and dust storm over several parts of NW India. The heat wave spell will only be till May 21,” said RK Jenamani, senior scientist at the IMD.
A second Met department official said the thunderstorms spells will likely stretch well into next week. “From Saturday until Tuesday, the maximum is expected to be 40 degrees or lower as this rain is likely to provide a cooling effect,” the official said. But before the relief, Friday is likely to be a particularly hot day. Forecasts showed the temperature could hover between 44 and 47°C, while the minimum will be around 29 degrees.
Mungeshpur, along the Capital’s border with Haryana, was the hottest place in Delhi on Thursday along with Najafgarh at 46.3°C. Safdarjung, Delhi’s base station for weather, recorded a maximum of 43.6°C– three degrees above normal and also three degrees higher than Wednesday’s maximum. On Sunday, Mungeshpur, recorded 49.2°C, becoming the hottest city countrywide that day, according to data from the national weather office. A string of extreme heatwave events have hit northwest India and adjoining Pakistan since last month, leading to a drop in crop output and triggering a power crisis in recent weeks. In the northern part of the country, the typical spring season was virtually erased by an early onset of summer that began in March.
These events, especially the record-breaking heatwave, have been over 100 times more likely because of the climate crisis, a UK Met Office study released on Wednesday said. April and May 2010 saw the highest combined average temperature in the region since 1900, the study said. So now, the Office conducted an attribution study to estimate the chances of exceeding the recordbreaking temperature witnessed in April and May in 2010.
“Spells of heat have always been a feature of the region’s pre-monsoon climate during April and May. However, our study shows that climate change is driving the heat intensity of these spells making recordbreaking temperatures 100 times more likely. By the end of the century increasing climate change is likely to drive temperatures of these values on average every year,” said Nikos Christidis, who produced the Met Office attribution study.
But south of the country, there are signs that offer some long term relief. Monsoon winds have strengthened touching Sri Lanka on Thursday, nearly a week in advance and the conditions are favourable for the system to advance further into some more parts of south and central Bay of Bengal, and some parts of South Arabian Sea, during next two days, the IMD has said.